


Supplemental tidings about a puss

by mayachain



Category: Le Maître Chat ou Le Chat Botté | Master Cat; or Puss in Boots - Charles Perrault
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Happily Ever After, Somewhat, mostly altruism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 12:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16640192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: There was once a cat that pranced around in a pair of boots he had demanded from a miller’s youngest son.





	Supplemental tidings about a puss

There was once a cat that pranced around in a pair of boots he had demanded from a miller’s youngest son. In exchange for the boots, he had paired off the lad with the princess of the land and also rid said land of a pesky ogre magician.

Now, it should not surprise anyone that this puss-in-boots had once been human: A strapping young man who had been cursed into the shape of a cat. This had happened a long, long time ago – long enough ago that the puss himself had since forgotten just what had been the sour grapes that sparked the curse. And while he recalled that adapting to his animal form had been challenging when the curse had been new, by now Puss had come to appreciate his feline body a lot.

The boots, however… The boots… The boots, now that he had acquired a pair at long last, went a long way to persuade everyone he met that there was nothing at all wrong with a talking tomcat roaming the land.

I’m told that if one had to make a life for oneself as a cat, one could meet fates far worse than hunting mice for a miller and his three sons. The youngest son even had a good head on his shoulders, Puss thought, one he could make excellent use of if but given the chance. Even if, to Pusses regret, the lad had never warmed much toward animals.

Foul were the words that fell out of the cat’s mouth when the land’s age-old inheritance laws left the boy with all but nothing upon his father’s death; fouler still when the eldest kept on the middle son but cast out the benjamin. Yet had the mill fallen to the youngest or the relationship between the brothers been more cordial in nature…

It is possible that, at some point, the man the cat had once been had had a claim to the throne. Perhaps it had only ever been a lofty aspiration. Whatever the case, Puss wished the princess well. Sending the miller’s son her way was the right course of action, he thought: It would relieve the inbreeding the lassie’s royal family had brought on itself, and it would connect a rather spoiled and sheltered ruler to the people. Revolutions were so ugly and loud, after all.

No mouse, it has been ascertained, no mouse since or before ever tasted as exquisite as the ogre magician. Perchance digesting the man left Puss-in-boots with a little more magic than he’d possessed before; rumours persist of a tomcat that can project a human form if he wants to.

Only… Why-ever would he want to?

 

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End file.
